Destroyed Georgian tanks in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, in August 2008.
Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA

Judges at the international criminal court have given the green light for a new inquiry into allegations of war crimes during a brief but bloody 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.

It will be the first inquiry by the world’s only permanent war crimes court into allegations of abuses by Russia, and also the first to examine a conflict outside of Africa.

In October last year, the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda formally requested to be allowed to open a full investigation into the 2008 war in South Ossetia. She told judges that preliminary findings suggested evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On Wednesday a panel of three judges agreed to the request, concluding that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the ICC’s jurisdiction have been committed in the situation in Georgia”.

They said such charges included “crimes against humanity, such as murder, forcible transfer of population and persecution, and war crimes, such as attacks against the civilian population, wilful killing”.

After winning the brief war, Russia recognised South Ossetia – along with another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia – as independent states. Together the two regions comprise about 20% of Georgian territory.

ICC prosecutors estimate that between 13,400 and 18,500 ethnic Georgians were forcibly displaced and that “the ethnic Georgian population living in the conflict zone was reduced by at least 75%.”